TEFL Dnipropetrovsk

english is considered by many to be the lingua franca of our era, but will it really be an enduring tool for communications in the future in the face of swiftly growing languages like Mandarin? english had a sizable head start on Mandarin’s global spread because of the British Empire’s education in its colonies and in the commonwealth, leaving many countries around the world with english as a major spoken language today, from hong kong to the United Arab Emirates. english isn’t only important as a common spoken language but as the accepted means of communication for many different mediums, interactions, and organizations. english is the official language of the United Nations as well as all maritime and aeronautical communications. This huge starting speaker base for the english language also drastically affected the development of the World Wide Web. As much as 80% of website content across the internet is in english, meaning that any fresh person wanting to delve into the web must cultivate at least a basic working knowledge of english to pierce the shroud, while also being encouraged to develop their understanding of the language further to access progressively more and more complicated content. It’s also commonplace for researchers to publish their work in english to make it more accessible to a wider potential audience. Even if Mandarin becomes a common spoken tongue for business and communication, science and computing have had english ingrained into their technological jargon, their content, and their electronic or conventionally published means of communication with other people with similar interests around the globe. Two good indicators of whichever language is viewed as the most important are the educational aspirations of students in countries that speak neither language natively and the preferred language and currency for deals in business. Mandarin has enjoyed a boost in popularity in many native english speaking schools because it’s a logical second choice of language to prepare for the future, but what about Asian countries near china? According to a BBC article on the subject in the context of Malaysia, english is still the most popular language for students even in such relative proximity to china. Many students commute across the border to Singapore, where they can receive schooling in english that the students’ parents feel will give them much more job flexibility later in life. The article goes on to say that Mandarin is becoming a key language for business, such as for setting up western businesses in china. However, even in that case the negotiator would need to know both Mandarin and english such that both languages co-exist in the business sector. The article goes on to detail how vietnam is vehemently opposed to adopting Mandarin but is embracing english, especially among young people. With english dominating on virtually every front but china-related business deals, it’s not hard to speculate that english will continue to be the most prominent global language for a great deal of time to come. Global languages of the past, such as Latin and french, faded into relative obscurity over time as their empires crumbled and colonies gained independence. However, globalization has changed the way language works on a global scale. The integration of english into many international communications systems and its position as a foundation for being able to understand and communicate in math, science, and the world wide web means that any language that supplants it would not only have to replace the spoken word but also the significant establishment upon which much of modern globalization has been built. With as many as 300 million people in china learning english, I don’t think english’s throne as the premier global language will be shifting hands anytime soon. Bibliography: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-17105569 http://edition.cnn.com/2012/05/18/business/english-language-business/index.html http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/english_language http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/english_in_computing http://blogs.wsj.com/chinarealtime/2011/04/14/china-struggles-with-english/